This exhibit is
dedicated in perpetuity to Robert "Bob" Ragen, chief architect of the EC-130
calculator [7/23/1928-7/20/2012]

Updated 4/15/2014

This is a truly wonderful machine.
It is one of the earliest all-electronic desktop calculators, and is
generally regarded as the first solid-state transistorized electronic
calculator, although there is evidence that Sharp
(Compet 10)
and IME (IME 84) actually
introduced their electronic calculators slightly before Friden did.
Earlier electronic calculators used relays or gas-discharge tubes,
such as the Casio 14-A relay calculator (1956), or the thyratron tube-based
Sumlock Comptometer/Bell Punch Anita C/VIII
(1961). The Friden 130 pioneered the use of Reverse Polish Notation (RPN),
a method of entering math problems using a multi-register stack. RPN
logic made complex calculations easier to perform without having to write
down intermediate results and re-enter them into the calculator when needed.
Friden continued the use of this stack-based method of calculating
in its second generation of calculators (an example being the
Friden 1162), but for some reason the principle
was never patented by Friden. The use of the RPN methology applied to
electronic calculators was originally patented by Mathatronics, in their
Mathatron calculators, which
hid the RPN implementation from the user, but used it internally to carry
out the mathematical operations. Later, when Mathatronics was liquidated after
being purchased by Barry Wright Corp., Hewlett Packard purchased the
rights to the patent, as a means to protect their use of the RPN
method in their first electronic calculator, the HP 9100A.
HP's use of RPN proved so successful that HP still uses
it on many of their calculators to this day. Later
calculators from Singer/Friden (111x-Series and beyond) abandoned RPN in
favor of more conventional arithmetic logic.

The story behind the development of the Friden 130 is somewhat shrouded
in the mists of time, but the general situation appears to be that Friden
management realized that the days of the electro-mechanical calculator were
numbered sometime in the early 1960's, after hearing of the development
of an all-electronic calculator in Britain. Sumlock Comptometer, Ltd.
had set the calculator world on end when it introduced the first electronic
calculator in 1961. The Anita Mark 7 and
Mark 8
calculators caused many makers of electro-mechanical and relay calculators
realized that the future of calculating was with electronics.
Electronic circuitry is fast, quiet, and reliable. Electro-mechanical
calculators were noisy, slow, and had lots of moving parts that required
regular maintenance to continue to operate properly. Relay calculators,
while less noisy, and faster than electro-mechanical machines, also had
moving parts (relays rely on mechanical movement to close switch contacts),
and also had myriad switch contacts that wore over time and required periodic
maintenance and adjustment. The problem for the companies that sold
electro-mechnical or relay calculators as their bread-and-butter business
was that they had brilliant mechanical and switching engineers, but little
in the way of the electronic engineers needed to design a practical
electronic calculator. Most of the electrical engineers were working
in military, space, aviation, or communications technology, and those
markets snatched up all of the electronic engineers as soon as they
graduated from college, making the good electronic engineers a rare commodity
in the early 1960's.

Robert Ragen, 1988Image Courtesy of Dick Ahrens

By researching patent information, along with some first-hand
information from a number of former Friden employees of the time, it has become
clear that the essential contributor to the architecture
and design of the Friden EC-130 was a brilliant electronic engineer named
Robert Ragen. Ragen worked for Friden prior to
the development of the Friden 130 on government-related electronics projects
that Friden was involved in. The word is that the work involved secret
electronic communications systems development (Data Encryption) for
the National Security Agency. Those who would know even to this day are
not forthcoming with information relating to this work, so one can assume
that whatever it was, it was, and still is, deemed critical to the defense
and security of the United States. Whatever the work was, it provided
Friden with the electronic stepping stone on the path towards developing
a fully-electronic calculating machine to take over in place of the
mechanical masterpieces that Friden was so famous for.

Friden also had some other in-house electronics expertise that had been
developed by the acquisition of a product from Benson-Lehner Corporation.
This machine integrated a modified Friden electromechnical calculator
(Model STW-10) with a
solenoid-activated typewriter, along with a cabinet full of relay and
stepper switch logic, to make an automatic billing machine that could
perform invoicing and accounting work, driven by programs fed into the
machine on punched paper tape. Friden called the machine the "Computyper",
and began making refinements to the Benson-Lehner design, creating different
versions of the Computyper with successively more features. While initially
electro-mechanical machines, the Computyper work did help bring additional
logic and switching theory expertise to the company.

Along with the experience gained with the Computyper, there was also work being
done on development of Friden's own electronic computer, which eventually
became the 6010 electonic computing system. The 6010 was a small computer
targeted at office applications such as billing, payroll, inventory, and
other accounting-related business activities. This work was done mostly
in parallel with the development of the EC-130, and expertise was shared
between the projects.

During the early 1960's, Friden was advertising heavily to attract
electrical engineers and technicians to acquire the resources needed
for the electronics projects that the company needed to staff.
All of the expertise gained from hiring bright engineers,
the secret electronics work for the government, the evolution of the
Computyper, and the early work on Friden's own electronic computer, all provided
the internal expertise necessary to attack the problem of developing
an entirely solid-state electronic desktop calculator.

After the work for the government wound down, the timing was right for
Friden to jump headlong into developing an electronic replacement
for mechanical calculators. Ragen, as the leader of the development
team, along with team of other Friden engineers
and craftsmen, were put to task to develop a prototype
of the Friden electronic calculator. In the timeframe of about a year,
a prototype was developed with electronics that fit in a box just
a shade larger than today's compact refrigerators. Sitting on top of this
box was a console that provided the user interface for the calculator,
consisting of the keyboard and CRT-display. The first prototype utilized
a magnetic drum (Bryant Model C-105) to both generate the master clock
frequency for the machine (via dedicated pre-recorded timing tracks), and
to store the working registers of the calculator. While useful for
a prototype, a magnetic drum just isn't practical for a desktop calculator.
Some other form of storage would need to be used in the actual product.

Photo of the large-scale delay line-based prototype version of the EC-130 Calculator.The calculator electronics are in the large lower chassis, with the keyboard and CRT display and its drive electronics in the smaller unit sitting on top.

Another view of the EC-130 large-scale prototype, with Robert Ragen in the foreground

Later prototypes replaced the magnetic drum (which was a large, expensive and
sensitive piece of equipment) with a megnetostrictive delay line, which was
a much less costly and not nearly as temperamental as the magnetic drum.
These proof of concept prototype calculators were far from
practical as a useful piece of office equipment, but it served to demonstrate
the concept -- Friden had what it took to build an all-electronic calculator.
This prototype had all of the functionality of the Friden 130, including
RPN logic, CRT display, magnetostrictive delay-line storage, and transistorized
construction.

Diagram of the prototype predecessor to production Friden 130 (From US Patent #3546676)Note similarities to the prototypes in the photos above

Once the large-scale prototype was completed, the next task was to shrink
the cabinet of components that made up the electronics of the machine down
to a practical and usable desktop-sized unit. A couple of factors that
contributed to making this job a little easier were that the electronics
in the prototype were designed more for development than production.
Components were not tightly packed, circuit boards had wiring only on one
side, and interconnections were widely spaced. Another factor was that the
prototype was hand-made, which generally makes for a less space-efficient
design. After all, a prototype is made to show that a concept is workable
-- the effort is placed on making the idea a reality, rather than trying
to optimize it for manufacture. In a mass-produced calculator, the space
between components can be dramatically reduced, circuit boards can have
wiring on both sides, and interconnections can be made much more dense.
The problem was, Friden did not have much experience making the complex
circuit boards that were required to cram all of the components necessary
into a desktop package. Friden needed to be able to manufacture circuit
boards with traces on both sides of the board. This means that there has
to be a way to provide connections through the circuit board to
allow circuitry and traces on one side of the board to connect to traces
on the other side. Such connections are called feed-throughs. For the small
and fairly simple circuit boards used in their electro-mechanical calculators
and Computypers, Friden had set up a circuit board manufacturing facility
using a rather unique machine to etch the circuit board traces.
This technology worked nicely for the simple single-sided circuit boards
needed in the electro-mechanical calculators and Computypers, as well as
the developing electronic computer (size is not as much of an issue in a
computer system), but the EC-130 needed much more complex circuit boards
with wiring on both sides of the board. This presented a problem.
The feed-through holes tended to short out the machine that did the circuit
board etching. As it turned out, the etching machine was used to make the
single-sided boards in the EC-130's power supply, but due to this problem,
the logic boards of the calculator were farmed out to a specialty firm that
manufactured the calculators logic circuit boards for Friden.

Larry Kramer, Friden Chief Draftsman (right) and Dick Ahrens, Electronics Engineer(left) pouring over
the (huge) master schematic for the Friden 130
Sincere thanks to Dick Ahrens for donation of the Original photo and negative to the Old Calculator Web Museum

In the early part of 1963, a prototype of
the the machine, all packaged into a desktop-sized unit, was ready,
and exhaustive testing was begun. A disturbing problem was found where the
calculator would inexplicably and randomly deliver incorrect results.
Intense efforts went into finding the problem, which was finally traced to
the high voltage section of the electronics (related to driving the CRT
display). High electrostatic charge levels would build up, causing
discharges that would make the calculator malfunction intermittently.
Given that these calculators were expected to deliver accurate results all
of the time, such a problem was intolerable. This, and a few other
issues, delayed the formal introduction of the EC-130 to the public by
almost six months. This delay led to a number of other companies
developing solid-state desktop electronic calculators to beat
Friden to product introduction, including Hayakawa Electric (Sharp) in
Japan, and IME in Italy.

The First Pre-Production Desktop Prototype Friden 130, August 1963
Click on image for a more detailed view
Original photo donated to the Old Calculator Web Museum through the generosity of Dick Ahrens

By the late spring of 1963, a prototype of a desktop machine was completed that
combined all of the circuitry of the large-scale prototype into a single
desktop package. A funny story occurred that was related to the author
by Dick Ahrens, one of the electronics engineers that was hired on by Friden
in early 1963 to work on the electronic calculator project. The story goes
that when it was time to power up this prototype for the first time,
a joke would be played on Bob Ragen. Ken Steward, a senior electronics
technician, hid a 20-foot length of plastic tubing in such a way
that it stretched from his lab bench to the inside of the prototype calculator,
yet wasn't readily visible. Bob Ragen had hooked a Variac (a variable
voltage transformer) to the prototype calculator, so that the line voltage
could slowly be ramped up to full voltage, just in case there were any
problems. The time came, and Ragen turned on the power switch on the
calculator, then slowly started turning up the voltage on the Variac. At
around the same time, Ken, who remained at his lab bench, blew a bunch
of cigarrette smoke into the tube, resulting in wisps of smoke coming out
of the precious prototype calculator. Ragen went into a panic, and
frantically turned down the variac, pulled the power cord for the calcualtor
out of the Variac, pulled the Variac's power cord out of the wall, and then
ran to the main panel for the lab and killed the power to the entire lab.
Only then was the trick revealed to Ragen, who was not very amused by the joke.
The power to the lab was restored, the plastic tubing removed, and the process
of powering up the calculator was redone, and this time, everything worked
just fine. Ragen took a long time to forgive the conspirators that
played this joke on him.

With the desktop prototype machine working, it was decided that
the machine needed to be shown to a few industry and trade insiders
to get an idea as to the reception for this amazing machine. At a rather
secretive event, the prototype desktop-packaged
Friden 130 prototype was shown to a specially-selected audience at a
business machines exposition in June of 1963. Attendees were required to
sign a non-disclosure agreement stating that they must keep what they see
completely secret. The attendees were shown the machine in a suite,
away from the main exhibition floor. The folks that saw the prototype
were absolutely floored over the speed, silence, and capabilities of the
machine. It was clear to Friden from this event that they had a winner
on their hands. Now, the task at hand was to ramp up the manufacturing
operation to begin cranking out the EC-130 in production quantities,
build an initial stock of machines to meet early demand once the machine
went on sale, and train up the service force to be able to provide repair
services for the calcualtor.

While there had been a number of low-key previews of pre-production
versions of the EC-130 from it's initial private showing in spring of '63,
the formal public introduction of the EC-130 did not occur until almost
a year later, almost six months behind the original timeline for
introduction. The formal public introduction of the EC-130 occurred at the
famous Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. The presentation of the
electronic calculator was presided over by Friden's Vice President of Domestic
Sales, Mr. S. P. Simmons. Mr.
Simmons, in his address to the huge audience, stated that the EC-130
"was a worthy product to lead the industry into the era of electronics".
Little could he have guessed that Friden's machine would
lead Friden to quickly become the leader in the electronic calculator
industry. While this leadership was rather short-lived (the Japanese very
quickly ended up taking over the vast majority of the electronic marketplace
by the late 1960's), the EC-130 truly began the mainstream adoption of
electronic calculators as in business and scientific persuits as
replacements for the noisy and slow electro-mechanical calculators that
had made Friden famous and very successful in the first place.

The prototype and early production EC-130 calculators
had decimal point settings of 0, 2, 5, 9, and 13 digits behind the decimal
point. When the EC-130 went into primary production, the decimal point
settings were changed for some (currently unknown) reason to 0, 2, 5, 7,
and 13 digits behind the decimal. In November of 1964 (November 20, 1945),
a service letter (Calculator Release 0024) was issued by Friden headquarters
indicating that a special batch of decimal point setting switches was procured
with the original selections of 0, 2, 5, 9 and 13
digits behind the decimal. This was due to a significant number of
requests from purchasers of early EC-130's that had noted the change, and
wanted their machine to match the decimal point selections speficied when
they ordered the machine. Friden offered installing the replacement switch
in the field at a cost of $45.00 to the customer to satisfy these requests.

As more and more EC-130's made it into the hands of customers, it became
apparent that there were some teething pains with the product.
Many of the early production Friden 130's had some fairly
serious problems with reliability due to issues with the circuit boards.
The firm that manufactured the circuit boards for Friden was having
difficulty with the plated feed-through holes which provided connections
from one side of the circuit board to the other. To fix this problem
required tedious hand-soldering of feed-through connections in the field
by Friden service technicians. Friden made good on these problems,
providing highly skilled service technicians who spent a
lot of time in training to be able to repair any faulty EC-130 quickly and
efficiently. In fairly short order, the circuit board manufacturer
solved the feed-through problems, and as the machines in the field that
had the problems were repaired, the problems subsided. Even with
some of the problems early-on, customers were delighted with
this amazing machine that could quietly and very quickly solve their difficult
mathematics problems.

An early prototype circuit board (unpopulated, used for flow-solder testing) from the Friden 130

Another early prototype circuit board from the Friden 130

Click on either image for more details.
Sincere thanks to Dick Ahrens for donation of these boards to the museum.

The architecture that Bob Ragen devised
was very unique compared to designs of other calculating machines either
prior-to, or after the 130. The 130 used an unusual arrangement
of four (later, three) interconnected up or down counters (known as
A, B, C, and D) and control circuitry, along with a novel way of storing
data in the magnetostrictive delay line.
The design was very elegant, minimizing the component count needed to
implement the logic of the machine, and easily suited to the purpose of
performing the basic four math functions. In the early 1960's when this
machine was designed, transistors were still rather expensive. Minimizing the
number of transistors meant that the cost to manufacture was lower than
less-efficient designs, allowing more margin to be built into the final
sales price of the product, while still providing a product that would be
priced competitively in the marketplace.
Ragen's design was quite a
departure from the design of the Sumlock ANITA calculators, which at the time
were the only other electronic calculators in the marketplace. The ANITA
calculators
were essentially electronic implementations of mechanical calculators. They
operated in decimal, using ten-stage electronic counters much like the
ten-step mechanical counters in rotary calculators. The Friden 130 uses
a completely different approach, utilizing counters and trains of
pulses stored in a magnetostrictive delay line to perform mathematical operations.

Sometime around mid-1965, it
became apparent that one of the four counters (in particular, the B counter)
in the machine could be removed, simplifying the machine and reducing the
component count. Some redesign of the machine was necessary, but it was
worth it to implement the change in order to reduce cost and improve
reliability. Friden EC-130 calculators prior to serial number 8500 were
"four counter" calculators, and from serial number 8500 and beyond,
the "three counter" architecture was substituted.
Friden service technicians had to be aware of this architectural
change when servicing calculators in the field, as there were differences in
circuit boards between the two designs of the 130. Along with being able
to discriminate between the earlier four-counter and later three-counter
EC-130s by serial number, it is also possible to know the architecture
of the calculator without even looking at the serial number (located on the
bottom of the calculator). The four-counter EC-130s displays the bottom-most
register in the display in intensified form, while the three-counter machines
do not have this feature. Originally, it was thought that intensifying
the display of the bottom-most register (where all calculation results are
displayed) would make it easier on the operator. The intensity was increased
by actually displaying the bottom register twice during each display cycle.
As part of the simplification of the logic involved in switching to the
three-counter architecture, the feature was dropped. The machine exhibited
here is a three-counter machine, indicated by its serial number of 12692, and
also by the display (see image below), which does not have the bottom register
intensified.

Inside the Friden 130

The Friden 130 uses diode-resistor
"OR" and "AND" logic gates, with transistor-based inverter, buffer, and
flip-flop devices. It performs math operations in
bit-serial form, using the magnetostrictive delay line as the medium
for storing its working registers.
Logic levels are 0 Volts representing logic 1, and -12 Volts (nominally)
representing logic 0.
The delay line input transducer is driven
with a pulse of approximately 20V, and by the time the signal makes it to
the other end of the delay line, the voltage induced in the receiving
transducer is approximately 35mV, or 35/1000th's of a volt.
Digits are stored within the delay
line as a series of pulses arranged in groups for each digit. Zero pulses
represents a zero, and nine pulses represent
a nine, with the numbers in-between represented by a number of pulses matching
the number. As the pulses exit the delay line, they are amplified and fed
into the counters (the A and/or D counters), which count the number of pulses
in the digit to form a unique five-bit identifier that represents the number.
The counter registers are not configured as counters in the usual binary
sense. They are instead configured as five stage switch-tail shift registers,
such that they count in a sequence of shifting 1's. For example; 0
is represented as 00000; 1 as 10000; 2 as 11000; 3 as 11100; 4 as 11110; 5
as 11111; with 6 as 01111, and ending with 9 as 00001.
With five flip flops, each counter can represent the numbers zero through
nine as unique combinations of bit patterns.

The delay line is a very interesting
method of providing working storage registers for a calculator. Given that
transistors were still rather expensive, some other means for storing
the working registers of the calculator was needed. A little
math shows how quickly the component count grows if the working
registers of the calculator were to be implemented in circuitry.
It takes at least two transistors to make a flip-flop, along with
a complement of resistors, capacitors, and diodes. A flip-flop
is essentially a 1-bit storage register. With 13 digits to
store, and with each digit taking 5 bits, that means that there would
have to be 65 flip flops, or a minimum of 130 transistors, to store one
register in the stack. The 130 has 4 registers in the stack, plus
one for the memory register. This would have taken over 600 transistors,
along with hundreds of resistors, capacitors, and diodes,
just to provide the storage for the registers. Such a design would have been
prohibitive both in terms of cost and space required.

Ragen's solution to this problem was to leverage technology used in early
computers (from the late 1940's through early '50's) to store the content
of the working registers of the calculator. Before the advent
of ferrite-core magnetic memory devices, one particular means of storage for
electronic computers used long narrow tubes filled with Mercury with a
transducer at each end. The bits of data took the form of sonic
disturbances created by the transducer at one end of the tube. These
disturbances propogated through the mercury at a fixed rate. The bits were sent
through the mercury a bit at a time in serial fashion, and were constantly
re-circulated through the tube like a big shift-register. When bits were
needed, they were siphoned off by a transducer which converted the
acoustical pulses to pulses of electrical energy, which were amplified and
sent into the arithmetic unit bit at a time, where the appropriate operations
were performed and the results pushed back into the bitstream circulating
through the Mercury. The 130 uses a similar method, but rather than
using exotic (and poisonous) materials like Mercury, a carefully-selected
type of wire (made of a Nickel alloy) is used that holds the bits as tiny twists
(torque variations) in the wire that move along the wire from one end to the
other. The phenomenon is much like the wave that travels down a length of
rope when you quickly whip one end of the rope. A transducer at one end of
the wire places a twisting torque pulse on the wire which travels through
the wire and is registered at the other end by a similar transducer.
By continuously circulating these torque variations through the wire, the
wire becomes the storage medium for the bits, and far less circuitry is
required to maintain all of the bits that the machine needs to operate.
In the Friden 130, the delay line takes the form of a large number of loops
of this special wire, that, if unwound, would be about 50 feet in length.
A pulse entering at one end of the wire will come out the other end in
approximately 5 milliseconds, or stated otherwise, it takes about 5/1000ths
of a second for a pulse to make its way from one end of the delay wire
to the other. The wire is carefully strung in a series of spirals inside
a sealed metal enclosure that takes up most of the bottom part of the chassis
of the calculator.

A Closer View of the Card Cage

The circuitry of the three counter Friden
130 is contained on a total of seven circuit boards, each of which is about
12 by 5 inches. The boards, as expected, are packed quite densely with
components. Most of the transistors are Germanuim (Silicon transistors
were just becoming commonly available, and were significantly more expensive)
junction transistors, mostly of the PNP type (predominantly 2N1305).
The circuit boards plug into
a backplane via edge connectors. However, the backplane connections weren't
sufficient for all of the inter-board connections needed. Three groups
of two boards each are wired together with many hand-soldered jumpers to
provide the additional inter-board connections needed. The boards are put
together in pairs of two, with wire jumpers connecting each pair of boards
across the top edge of the boards.

The CRT, CRT Drive, and Power Supply Circuitry

Another small circuit
board mounted to the aluminum chassis seperating the card cage from
the CRT subsystem contains the drive circuitry for the CRT display, and
a large circuit board situated underneath the CRT tube contains
the power supply electronics, including a capacitor-diode voltage multiplier
circuit that produces the high voltage (Approx. 2400 Volts) for the
Westinghouse-made 5DEP1 electrostatic deflection CRT tube. The keyboard
assembly also has
a small circuit board with two transistors and a number of discrete components
that provides signal conditioning for the keyboard outputs. The power supply
provides 6.3V for the filament in the CRT, +6V and -12V DC as logic supplies,
+80V for CRT deflection amps and delay line voltages, and approx. 2400V DC for
the high voltage for the CRT.

A New-Old Stock (NOS) Westinghouse 5DEP1 CRT Tube, Circa 1967

The 130 has a 4-level RPN stack, with
all four levels visible on the display. The content of the
single store/recall memory register is not shown on the display.
Digits are drawn in vector form on the display in a modified "pieces of
eight" seven-segment form. Like all RPN-logic calculators, the Friden 130
has an [ENTER] key, which is used to enter the first number in an operation
into the bottom register of the stack. A [REPEAT] key duplicates the number at
the bottom of the stack by pushing the number in the bottom register in the
stack up one, then duplicating it in the bottom register in the stack.
This repeat function makes squaring much easier, allowing the user to
calculate a square without having to re-enter the number
(for example, 1232 would be entered as [1], [2], [3], [REPEAT],
[X]). The [CHANGE SIGN] key toggles the sign of the number in the bottom of
the stack. Numeric entry occurs in the bottom-most register of the stack.
The standard four math keys perform their respective operations on
the bottom two registers of the stack, with the stack shifted down after
the operation is complete, and the result stored in the bottom-most register
of the stack. When the stack is shifted down, the top-most register
is set to zero.
The [CLEAR ALL] key clears the stack, and the [CLEAR ENTRY] key clears
the bottom register of the stack. The [STORE] key copies the bottom
register of the stack into the memory register, clearing the bottom register
of the stack. The [RECALL] key pushes the stack up, and copies the number
in the memory register into the bottom register in the stack.

Friden 130 CRT Display

The machine handles 13 digit numbers,
with thumbwheel-selectable fixed decimal point location. The keyboard uses a
unique combination of electrical and mechanical construction. The keys actuate
magnetic reed switches through a mechanical mechanism that encodes the
keyboard keys into a binary code for the electronics. The keyboard is also
mechanically interlocked by a mechanism controlled by the electronics.
When an operation is performed, the function key locks down and isn't
released until the operation is completed.
This prevents the user from getting ahead of the machine.
The keys are also mechanically interlocked so that it is impossible to
press more than one key at a time. The machine performs only the basic add,
subtract, multiply and divide operations, and has a single store/recall
memory register. Shortly after the 130 was introduced, Friden announced
a follow-on machine, the 132,
which added a square-root function and provided more decimal point position
selections.

Friden 130 Keyboard Layout (Click photo for detailed keyboard layout)

The 130 can take up to 2 seconds
to perform difficult divisions, such as the "all-nines" (9999999999999)
divided by 1 calculation. While
this may seem a bit slow compared to what folks are used to today,
this was orders of magnitude faster than the electro-mechanical calculators
being used at the time, not to mention the fact that the 130 performed
such operations with almost magical silence. The basic clock frequency of
the four counter 130 is 666KHz (the clock rate was changed to 333Khz in the
three register machine due to the elimination of one stage in the chain
of divider flip-flops), which, for the time, is a relatively fast clock rate
for Germanium-based transistor logic. The clock frequency is divided
down by a chain of flip-flops that create the various master timing signals
that orchestrate the operation of the calculator. During math operations,
the display is blanked. If the machine is commanded to divide by zero,
the display blanks and stays that way with the electronics running in a
futile attempt to repeatedly subtract zero from the dividend. The OVER FLOW
indicator does not light to show this condition as an error, which can
lead one to wonder if the calculator has failed.
Pressing the [OVER FLOW/LOCK] key, or the [CLEAR ALL] key stops the
futility and returns the calculator to normal operation.

The [OVER FLOW/LOCK] Key Indicating an Overflow Condition

There is one additional key
on the keboard which serves to unlock the machine in the event of overflow
or an inadvertent division by zero. If the machine overflows, the keyboard
locks, and an indicator in the [OVER FLOW/LOCK] key lights to indicate
the overflow condition. Pressing the [OVER FLOW/LOCK] key clears the overflow
condition (but not the stack), and unlocks the keyboard, allowing
calculations to continue.

On June 24, 1965, an option for
both the EC-130 and EC-132 calculators was announced to all Branch and Agency
managers via Friden Inter-Office Communication C-0045. The option was
called the ENTRY COUNTER, and involved adding a four-digit
electro-mechanical counter to the calculator. A modification to the
upper part of the cabinet was made to allow the counter to show through
a cutout in the panel to the right of the CRT display. The counter would
automatically increment each time a new numeric entry is made followed by
the depression of any control key on the keyboard
(with the exception of [CLEAR ALL], [CLEAR ENTRY] or [OVER FLOW/LOCK]
keys). The counter could be cleared to zero by pressing a reset button
on the counter itself. This option was primarily designed to make it easier
for users to calculate averages. The installation of this
option could be made only at a Friden Service depot, at a cost of $75.00.
The Friden 130 in the museum's posession has a cutout on the front part of
the chassis for the counter to be mounted, as do both of the EC-132's, but
none of the machines has the option installed. It is suspected that
EC-130's built prior to the announcement of this option do not
have the cutout in the chassis metalwork.
The author is not aware of the existence of
any EC-130 or EC-132 calculator with this option installed. If you have
a machine with the entry counter option, please contact the curator.

The Romanian-made Felix CE-30Image Courtesy Sergei Frolov

The Friden 130 apparently caught the
attention of the Soviet Bloc. The above image is from a story in a Russian
publication ("Radio" magazine) touting the
latest in Communist technological innovations. The machine, called the
Felix CE-30, was apparently to be manufactured in Romania.
The photo is is virtually identical to the Friden 130, right down to the
swoopy cabinet, keyboard design/layout, and CRT-display. In fact, it's
so close (even duplicating the oval-shaped Friden logo to the left of the
keyboard) that the unit pictured is likely a photo of an actual Friden 130,
though at least the keycaps were either modified or airbrushed in with
cyrillic nomenclature. It isn't clear if the machine was actually ever
manufactured, but if imitation is the most sincere form of flattery,
it sure seems that the Friden 130 was the benefit of some degree of
admiration by the Soviets.

On a personal note, I saw and
played with a Friden 130 when it was just introduced at the Pacific Science
Center at the Seattle World's Fair site sometime in late '64 or early '65.
(The World's fair was in 1962, and I visited it during that time, but the
time where I saw the Friden 130 was during a later visit). Even though I
was only around six or seven years old at the time, I very clearly remember
this machine being there, and the feelings of amazement I had that this machine
was able to quietly and quickly carry out all the math I could throw at
it (which at the time wasn't much, but it was still fun to play with).

For some first-hand information
about the Friden 130 and its follow-on machine, the 132,
see the article entitled The Friden EC-130: The World's
Second Electronic Desktop Calculator, by Nicholas Bodley.
The article is a wonderful summary of recollections by Nicholas, who was
a field service technician working for Friden at the time the Friden 130
was introduced. The article gives a fascinating look into the details of
the development and workings of the machine.
The article is used by permission.